


Nothing left is sacred

by ghostgirlintraining



Category: Monument Valley (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29983266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostgirlintraining/pseuds/ghostgirlintraining
Summary: Ida's thoughts never cease as she walks amongst the monuments.





	Nothing left is sacred

‘long have these old bones awaited in darkness’

The blue one had told Ida when she first entered the dark ruins. A quest for forgiveness, to resolve what she had done.  
What had she done?  
She couldn’t quite remember anymore.

‘how far have you wandered, silent princess?’

She had spent so long wandering the desolate planes by herself, with nothing but hapless thoughts for company, that she began to think that maybe she had dreamed the blue one too.  
Silence and solitude, solitude and silence.  
She stepped to the tune of nothing, drawn forward by an unknowable, seemingly unending source. What as she walking towards?  
Glory? death?  
Perhaps divine punishment was in order for what she had done.  
Whatever that was.  
Princess.  
The blue one had dubbed her thus.  
Prin-cess. So that was what she was. A shadow of a queen.

‘why are you here?’

Why was she here?  
She had a crown once. Blinding and sharp it had rest upon her once-worthy head, replaced now by a cone, containing treasures that needed to be returned.  
Had she stolen them?

‘this was the valley of men, now all that remains are our monuments, stripped of their glories’

She saw no one.  
But the monuments saw her. They whispered to each other, seething, angry at her intrusion.  
Or rather, resentment, for what she had done.  
Spires stretching into the clouds looked down with distain carved into their aged facades.  
They were beautiful, maddeningly so, and they loathed her.  
Only through gifts, through sacrifice, could she wander through their halls untouched.

‘thieving princess, why have you returned?’

So she did steal them.  
Shining, stunning things, forever changing before her eyes.  
They had called to her in their lilting voices, begged her to take them from their podiums, to show them the world.  
So she did. 

‘those who stole our sacred geometry have forgotten their true selves’

When she looked in the water, she knew the thing that looked back wasn’t her. Not really.  
Constrained by a form she did not love, cursed by her sin of foolishness and greed, she knew she was not worthy of pity.  
And yet, sadness rested on her like a cloak, ripping at her soul as she descended deeper into the ruins.

‘cursed to walk these monuments are they’

The crow people.  
Were they once hers? To rule, to love, to betray?  
Now they wandered aimlessly back and forth, screeching at her whenever she made the mistake of getting to close.  
Did they know what she had done?  
Could they see her, sliding past them, trying to undo what bound them to their newfound suffering?  
Did they care?

‘foolish princess, have you forgotten too?’

She remembered whispering stories she’d overheard to the patterns in the walls of her bedroom, smiling when the walls whispered their own stories back. They where ancient and wise and regaled her tales of kings and queens of time long before her. Of battles and bravery, of bloodlust and love.  
But she had deceived them.  
So now they gave her only silence.

‘long ages lie heavy on old bones in these buried halls’

Who’s bones did she walk on?  
Did the remnants of her ancestors look down on her now?  
Did they know?  
Would they have done the same?  
Questions muddled her thoughts as she kept walking. 

‘sacred geometry was our pride, our downfall’

Nothing left was sacred, she had made sure of that.  
Geometry, once pure and true, now crumbling due to neglect, the bricks wailing as they fell down into the dirt.

‘but forever will our monuments stand in this valley’

Forever was a long time.  
She wondered how long it would take to return them all.


End file.
